What makes a teacher great?

I wonder what you think about your teachers as an adult. My experience is that as you grow older you tend to remember most of your teachers in a very fond way, forgetting all the bad things and disagreements and focusing only on the positive ones and being very respectful and appreciative of the teachers in general. Well that’s the case with me save for my grades 6 to 10 high school principal (back then in India most schools except for the Central Board run schools were only upto 10th grade and then you did your 11 & 12th or Pre-degree in a college) and a couple of others. The rest of the teachers were all great to good – some of them were awesome. I think me and my old classmates really do appreciate just how lucky we were to have such genuinely wonderful teachers.

So what makes a teacher great? Several things that a teacher can do that is unique to him or her. Teaching styles differ from person to person. I think a great teacher had both a good understand of the subject matter at hand as well as good communication skills. They should be able to open the minds of the students and make them grasp the details of the lessons. They should be able to instill the aimed for learnings as well as elicit wonder & imagination from each and every student. The words and way that the teacher speaks should make the children in her/his class view the topics in their mind. The should engage in debate and discussions and encourage the students to participate in them and encourage them to ask questions, voice their opinions and suggestions. All of these will make the teacher great.

A teacher should not be interested in completing the 45 minute or 50 minute class and then go back to her/his desk at the teacher’s hall. They should not just parrot the lessons and then go home at the end of the day. They should be interested in enriching the students and ensuring that the students do learn the lessons.